A man who raped and viciously beat a 61-year-old woman in a cemetery as she left flowers on her mother’s grave was declared a dangerous offender Wednesday.

Russell Kirkpatrick, 48, was sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence, the harshest possible penalty in the Canadian justice system, for what Superior Court Justice John McMahon called a “horrific and brutal attack.”

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was in Scarborough’s Pine Hills Cemetery, visiting her mother’s grave as she did regularly, at around 5 p.m. on July 12, 2010, according to the agreed statement of facts.

Kirkpatrick came up behind her, said “Hi,” then choked her into semi-conciousness, sexually assaulted her and beat her so severely that she was left unrecognizable. McMahon noted in his ruling that a sexual assault nurse of 39 years said she had never seen anyone with injuries like hers.

Kirkpatrick left the woman unconscious by the grave with multiple facial fractures and a brain injury, taking all her clothes, shoes and her car keys, which she had used to fight him.

When apprehended by police, he denied having anything to with the attack, though the DNA evidence soon showed otherwise, McMahon said.

He then told police that he mistook the 61-year-old woman with short, brown hair for a blond prostitute who had stolen his money.

In a tearful address to the court on Wednesday in which he apologized to his victims and promised not to reoffend, Kirkpatrick repeated the same story, adding that he was high during the attack and that the prostitute was also his girlfriend.

“This was nothing more than a poor attempt to minimize and justify his actions,” McMahon said in his ruling, adding that it was troubling Kirkpatrick sought to defend his actions by saying he intended to harm another woman.

Kirkpatrick, who has been convicted of a number of violent offences including assault and uttering threats of death or bodily harm, also violently assaulted a female stranger in 1999, McMahon said. Kirkpatrick told police that woman provoked the attack for being a “mouthy b--tch” and called her a racial slur.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault at the time, with a charge of sexual assault withdrawn, but after hearing testimony from the victim, McMahon determined the unprovoked assault had a sexual motive.

The woman was in an apartment building elevator with Kirkpatrick, according to the agreed statement of facts. When the doors opened he dragged her out and into the garbage disposal room, where he beat her and left her unconscious.

McMahon noted that two forensic psychiatrists diagnosed Kirkpatrick with a personality disorder with anti-social personality traits, a substance abuse disorder related to alcohol and a so-called “rape preference.” He was found to be a high risk to reoffend, and McMahon expressed concern that given his history of violence, possible future crimes could escalate to murder.

McMahon also found that Kirkpatrick, who has a below-average IQ of 78, had little to no insight into his actions and his violent sexual dysfunction.

He pointed out that Kirkpatrick continued to highlight this in his repeated interruptions of McMahon’s ruling.

“I didn’t rape her, it was my fingers,” Kirkpatrick said at one point. He shook his head or protested any mention of him being a violent sexual offender. “This is all bulls--t,” he said.

McMahon chose a sentence with no set release date, instead of a fixed sentence of eight or 10 years followed by a 10-year long-term supervision order. The possibility of parole might be an incentive for Kirkpatrick to agree to sex-offender treatment, he said.

With a fixed sentence, he could be released “even if he does nothing,” said McMahon. Kirkpatrick’s incarceration is now in the hands of the National Parole Board; as is normal with an indeterminate sentence, his first full parole hearing is scheduled for 2017, seven years after he was arrested.

He will have a parole hearing every two years following that.

The victim of the 2010 assault has filed a $4.25-million lawsuit against Kirkpatrick, the owners of the cemetery and the security services provider at the cemetery. The Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries and the security company, Knights On Guard Security Surveillance Systems Corporation, have filed statements of defence denying any responsibility for what happened to her.

Her statement of claim alleges that both companies failed to prevent dangerous people from coming onto the cemetery grounds and to warn visitors of the potential for danger after a previous violent assault took place on or near the cemetery 10 months before her own attack.

Kirkpatrick did not respond to the lawsuit and the woman’s lawyer has requested a default judgment against him, according to court documents.